Minutes:
The Chair provided a verbal update on the Housing Task & Finish Working Group launching meeting held on the 8th March.
The working group is to look at social housing provisions in the borough and is composed of five members of which Cllr Hutchison (Chair), Cllr Bettley-Smith and Cllr Moffat (both Vice-Chairs), Cllr Grocott and Cllr Holland who all have different experiences and backgrounds.
The housing provisions are to be taken from the point of view of the housing providers, of which officers have been asked to provide a detailed list including both the quantity and type of property allocated such as flats, 2-3 bedroom houses, ground floor sheltered accommodations etc.
Once the information has been submitted, each provider will be asked to come to the working group and do a presentation. The use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) scoring is being considered to assess for example how many issues reported to the housing providers were dealt with and how long it took as well as categories those issues belonged to – e.g. doors, joinery, plumbing etc. Data can then get scrutinized by the working group in each of these maintenance areas.
Other KPIs may look at when residents log a fault with the association: are they kept up to date, what happens at the initial contact and after the fault is fixed are they given a satisfaction survey to fill including questions such as were they happy with the time taken to resolve the issue, was the member of staff professional at all time, did they leave the area clean, tidy and ready to use and finally was the problem resolved.
KPI Scoring would be a great tool for monitoring success. Cllr Bettley-Smith having experience in both statistics and housing let could help other members of the working group to analyse the data at future meetings.
Officers have been asked to provide the initial report by April 4th in readiness for the next meeting of the working group scheduled for the 12th April.
Cllr Bettley-Smith commented that an evidence based methodology would be required and that social housing providers would need to be considered in relation to the maintenance of the properties when developing the work programme. Two things may become conflated: casework and the point of view of occupiers on one side and the need to develop a robust database against which the benchmark for example compares with other authorities.
Once the current position is established, the working group will be able to review the arrangements, in particular the maintenance and management of the let housing stock especially social housing.
The work programme can then be constructed, the overall objective being to seek improvement. The benchmark will need to give a representative sample of the whole. As some occupiers would not want to participate a proper methodology needs to be developed.
Cllr Bettley-Smith ended up by sharing the expectation that the working group reports would not come later than September.
Resolved: Thatthe report be noted.
Supporting documents: